


The Hunter-bold and Maiden-brave

by heget



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Animal Transformation, F/M, Happy Ending, apologies to Hans Christian Anderson and JRR Tolkien, appropriate for young children, concealed cameos of several characters, nobody has a proper name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2838656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heget/pseuds/heget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Theon and Jeyne retold as a fairy tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hunter-bold and Maiden-brave

There was once a hunter, a poacher, who lived in the dark woods of the north, during the time before men now. He was the best hunter with a bow, living up near the wall that holds in the night, back before the new kings came. Little is known about this hunter-bold. He had eyes green as the sea at storm and a mouth that smiled and laughed but an over-proud heart that cared for none outside himself. No family claimed him; no house among men was his rest. Few called him friend or knew from whence he came. The hunter might have been an exiled lord from far away or across the sea, but what was known true far and wide was he was best with a bow and laughed at any king’s laws.

But in the north woods lived an evil sorcerer with the power over true names and a lust to trap everything under his control. And when this wielder of such magic outlawed by men came south in disguise, he tricked the poacher into helping him. The hunter thought the sorcerer’s goal was a rare beast that lived in the forest, an autumn hart, but it was the hunter with his fine bow and tracker’s skills that the sorcerer desired. In payment he would steal the hunter’s true name, and with that name turn the hunter into one of his hounds.

See, the sorcerer hunted with a pack of unearthly dogs, wanting and seeking all the wild magic of winter. And disguising his name and purpose this evil wielder of true names convinced the poacher to help him on a task, which the poacher, thinking himself cannier than the sorcerer, thought to trick the evil one. The poacher did not know this greedy merchant, wishing a coat from the autumn hart, was a master of magic and wolves.

The sorcerer learned the hunter’s name, for the poacher was careless and did not hide it. So the wielder of magic destroyed the village where the poacher sold his catches and blackened the forest in which he hunted, turning the trees to husks and freezing the streams in their beds, sending all the animals fleeing south or if found to rot unburied. The evil sorcerer used the true name to turn the poacher into one of his hunting hounds. No longer with fingers to draw a bow, now the hunter-bold ran on four paws and howled to the sky, trapped in the body of a beast. The sorcerer had devoured his name and destroyed any who knew him before, so none would know the green eyes were of a man and not a hound.

The once poacher learned each beast in the sorcerer’s pack had once been a man as well, but the loss of their name and the long time spent under the spells had turned each one into nothing more than an unnatural hound. Foul wolves they were, gaunt and starved, willing to do the evil one’s bidding, tricked into undying loyalty. Madness in their eyes, hunting all men as prey.  
This would have been the hunter’s only fate, had the girl not saved him.

Now the sorcerer demanded a winter bride, one of the frost maidens with power over snow and ice, from the powerful magicians of the seasons and stars. He was strong enough that others feared him, but still the sorcerer knew without the power over winter he would not be strong enough to control all in his reach. So he threatened that one of the daughters of the lords of winter be offered to him as a bride, and vowed to murder any other girl he found. And with his pack of hounds he hunted, and the hunter that was now a hound was among them.

But one cold day the hunter-now-hound found a maiden trapped outside the palisades of the town, and he recognized her face. She had been a member of the same village the poacher had brought his kills to, and they knew each other if vaguely. But the village had been destroyed by the sorcerer as part of the trick to turn the hunter into one of his unearthly pack, to deny anyone who knew the poacher’s true name.

But the maiden, a simple peasant girl with plain brown eyes, saw clearly who the hound really was. She knew those sea green eyes and whispered his true name.

The hound paused. He was the only one close to her, but he could hear the rest of the pack and the sorcerer coming. The girl would never be able to run back inside to safety before she was found and ripped apart, especially when she admitted that she had been cast out as a sacrifice to the sorcerer by the town not her own.

But the poacher knew her name, and felt the grip of the spell loosen in his mind. Words again he could speak, and on that frost-heavy morning he said her name. The brown-eyed maid looked clearly and saw and repeated his name, the name of the man and not the hound. He answered her, knowing not just who she was but who _he_ had been before the spell that turned him into the sorcerer’s dog.

That she had begun to loosen the spell upon him.

"Quickly," he whispered, in a voice hoarse and unused, "I will use a bit of magic, for in turning me into a different form using the power of true names, the sorcerer has given me a bit of that same magic. Enough to help you, though I think perhaps you would wish I kill you now instead. And yet I am his faithful hound, or he wished to turn me into one, and thus I must fetch him what he wants. But the sorcerer desires most a bride of winter, and thus we will say you are. With this bit of spell you will seem as one to all other eyes, a maiden with skin of ice, whose tears freeze upon her cheeks and never fall. Say you are a frost maid, and never speak your true name. Then you will live."  
Thus did the hound speak, and breathed his spell upon the brown-eyed maid, turning her flesh cold to the touch and all her tears to freeze upon her cheek.  
The sorcerer laughed when the winter maid was brought before him, and who knew if the wielder of such dark magic had truly been tricked by the scheme. But he claimed the girl as his frost bride, for the prestige of the claim to such power would cow his enemies as easily as to actually possess one.

To his far dominion in the woods near the wall of night he brought her, to his tower single and cold like an icicle piercing the cold sky. There she was draped in troll-skins and the pelts of wolves. And yet the maiden was never warm. He placed her in a throne of iron at his side, and bid his hounds lie down around her feet, where they snarled and gnawed on the bones of men. Meat and drink was placed before her, and the village maid did fear to eat. The sorcerer watched her every move, and bragged to his hall that all of winter would be his to control, and the north and night bow to him. He would press fingers to her cheeks and smile at the tears frozen there. A crown of bone and ice he placed upon her head, and said that all of her was now his to wield. And this would be true, but he did not know her true name.

"Be brave," the hound-once-hunter said, his sad green eyes upon the maid, his head upon her lap. Her hands would pet his tattered ears when none could see them, and his tail slowly would wag.

And yet the maid felt no comfort.

Cruel was the sorcerer to the maid, monstrously did her treat her. Only when he left to hunt with his pack of gaunt hounds through the winter-blasted dead-tree woods would she find a moment to cry alone. But no tears would drip. Her bare feet, cut by sharp ice and darkened by the cold, tracked footprints of blood as she wandered up and down the tower with only one door, looking out the windows to the lands of cold and winds of ice. No escape was possible for her to make. When she cried out for someone to find and rescue her, the winds stole the sound, the howls of the wolves hid her cries. Only the hound who was once a hunter-bold with eyes of green could hear her voice, and cursed that he was powerless to save her.

Now one day their escape finally came.

In most versions of the story it is said because a visitor came that this chance appeared. A bard in a cloak of autumn leaves had been brave enough, foolish perhaps or just confident of his own powers, to come to the sorcerer’s tower. He offered songs and tales of merriment and bold deeds to entertain the sorcerer’s pack of foul creatures. The singer might have been a spy from the lords of the seasons come to see the truth about this wielder of magic outlawed by men, for few would willingly seek out one with power to control true names. And the magicians of the south trembled at the thought of such evil a sorcerer controlling the powers a winter bride could give. When the bard saw the maid under her spell to seem a child of frost and winter, he too was fooled and thought to steal her away. For only the poacher from the village that lived no more knew the true name of the brown-eyed maid.

Once more someone thought to trick the sorcerer, and in doing so allowed another trick to grow. It was when this bard in a cloak of autumn leaves wove a song of power and slumber, entertaining the sorcerer to cloud his mind, filling the noses of all the other hounds with the scents of apple cider and the forest under the sun, did the hunter-now-a-hound creep to the chamber of the winter maid.

Under a pile of dank skins the hound found her, frost crusting everything in the room as she shivered. Her brown eyes were wide in fear that the sorcerer had come to fetch her and force her once again sit at his side in torment upon his iron throne.

But it was only the hound, and once more he lowered his face to hers and licked at the frozen tears upon her cheek.

"A bard of autumn is below," he whispered to the maid, "and thinks when his spell is finished he can lay the tower all to sleep and steal you away. But the sorcerer is stronger and will not be fooled for long. Do not go with him if he asks, for I fear your rescue cannot be from there."

And the hound wagged his tail slowly as the maiden softly stroked his ears, and pressed his body, skeletal as it was, to her side to give her warmth the spell had denied her.

And then in fear and gratefulness the maiden whispered the hunter’s name once more. At the sound of the true name hanging in the frost-laden air the spell of binding that made the hunter into one of the sorcerer’s gaunt and evil wolves fell away. Hope which had no home before grew in the hunter’s heart. “Come,” he told the maiden, and said her name, the name only the hunter knew to call her anymore. “We shall use this as our chance, for the sorcerer will blame the bard and the lords of golden autumn moons, but we shall be free.” And the hound laughed, which he had not done since before he had been a man, when he had fingers that could string a bow, and at that sound the maiden wiped away her tears.

"Quickly, let us run," said the hound, "for the sorcerer and all his hall are down below, entranced by the singer in his cloak of autumn red. We would never make it pass the door, and I have not the key to open it. But another way I now see."

And the maid pulled the crown of bone and ice from her brow, and threw it clattering on the cold tiles of the floor. Bravely she nodded to the hound, and followed him to flee this cage.

Up the single spiraling staircase of the sorcerer’s tower they ran. A dizzying spiral it was, circling the center of the tower as it reached up into the lonely night. Far below they could hear the faint strumming of the bard’s song. But as they fled, the sorcerer began to feel the snapping of the spell he had bound the poacher with and the winter maid no longer under his control. The sorcerer though the singer was to blame, and wasted magic to duel the strong songs of harvest, sun, and moon. A great duel of words of power raged between the sorcerer and the bard, for neither realized it was the simple act of kindness shared, of a past in common and names exchanged, that had undone the evilest of magic.

In the end the bard would flee south, his antlers dripping with blood as red as apples, and tell the lords of the south of how the sorcerer had a winter bride, but not, it seemed, anymore.

As they ran the enchantment on the hunter-now-hound began to fail in earnest, and he shed the coarse white hairs of a dog, and the hound’s teeth in his mouth began to loosen and fall out. His legs began to twist painfully, knees and ankles and feet bending as limbs began to right themselves. Thus he stumbled up the stairs, for the painful breaking of the magic was still incomplete. Sometimes he would bring the maiden crashing to her knees as well on the hard stones of the stairs, but immediately they would stand back up and continue running, hearing the echoes of the sorcerer and howls of his anger as they were chased.

And the hunter-no-longer-a-hound laughed, for the shape-changing magic through true names from the sorcerer still clung to him. But because the maiden had returned his name to him, he now had this power in full. At least enough for one spell.

At the very top of the tower, with snowstorm winds that lashed white fury to the point of blinding, perched the hound who was all almost now in the shape of the man. At his side stood the brown-eyed maiden. Into this storm he shouted a name of power, defying the winds and the sorcerer raging below.

"Trust me," he told the maid, and she having given him her trust so far would not deny it now. She took his hand and delighted at the feeling of fingers returned instead of claws, and smiled at him. For into the black teeth of winter, death from such a great height looked a relief from the torment of the sorcerer’s tower, and yet her heart also felt light and brave.

The hunter called a spell of power down upon him and the maid, and changed their form into that with wings. And as the sorcerer reached the roof of his tower, he saw his prizes, the hunter skilled and the winter maid, leap from his tower in the shape of two great birds intertwined. The winter storm carried the pair away, and drove snow to blind the sorcerer’s eyes, howling winds to mute his cries. Recklessly and aimlessly the hunter and the maid flew, awkward in the shape of birds and imperfectly changed. They knew not which direction they flew, nor could see before them. And they were both badly weakened by their captivity and had not the strength to flee far.

Only a short time could it be held before the spell of changing failed.

Down they crashed into a bank of snow, leafless trees of a silent forest all around them. Weak and tired, they huddled against each other. And for the hunter was no longer a hound and thus had nothing to cover his body, the maiden took one of the pelts from her shoulders and draped around him. In the snow bank they huddled close, limbs together and frost-white breath passing from lips to lips, waiting for night to end and the storm to hide their flight.

In the steel gray of day they woke, the snow piled high around them. The storm was gone, and the maiden wondered, for a true winter bride could control the snows and send them at will. She knew she was never more than one forced to carry the name and a bit of outward seeming, but the village maiden prayed her gratitude to the lords of winter for the wind that carried them away from the tower.

With aching bones the man unfolded his limbs, knotting the borrowed pelt around his torso. The maiden held him tight, though she did not feel warmth to give, mindful of the loss of fur to protect his heavily wounded skin.

"I know the sorcerer and his pack," the hunter said with a shadow of his mocking simile transformed rueful and cold. "They could not hunt us through the storm, and these woods are mine. I know the tricks of beasts to escape pursuit." He stood and looked around at the leafless trees pale as bone. "Bears come through here," said the hunter-bold, "and their musk will hide our scent from the hounds for a time."

The maid with plain brown eyes did not find comfort in the thought of bears to face, alone and unprotected as they were in the winter cold. “We must go,” she begged, and stood upon the snow.

"Go," said the man unsteady on legs he had not used for many turns of the moon. The village maid did not understand. Thus he said, "We will not be safe here for long. And we have no shelter, no fire or food or way to reach it before the sorcerer or the banes of winter find us. But there is just enough power in me to redo the words of power to change your form. To turn you back into a bird with wings to fly away. It will not last long enough to reach the magicians of the south with their powers of seasons, sun, and moon. But you can fly north. There is little in that direction but one place alone, and that is the wall of the doors of night. Strongest of all are the stars and the soldiers that guard the barrier of death and darkness. They alone I would trust could hold you safe, shield you from the cruel retribution of the sorcerer."

"No," whispered the maid, and calling out the true name of the hunter who had saved her she flung her arms around his sharp-boned shoulders and held him close.

"Go," said the man who was once a hunter and unwilling hound. He cupped the face of the maiden with both his hands, marveling at the feel of his fingers though he worried at the coldness that lingered on her skin. The maid with brown eyes stared at those hands scarred and broken by the spell of shape-changing.

"How can I leave you?’ she replied.

"Because you must." And then he laid a spell to transform her shape once more upon the maiden with plain brown eyes, hating himself that he did this to keep her safe. But the idea of her recaptured, or dying before his eyes, was more intolerable now than the first moment he caught her scent in the woods outside the palisade.

"Go," said the hunter, and this time she left.

The maiden flew. Her wings were steady, and determination powered each stroke. She told herself she would reach the wall, and then bring back an army to defeat the sorcerer who devoured names, tear down his tower of ice and bone. That she would come back to the hunter with sea green eyes. Long it seemed she flew, but soon she saw the edge of earth and sky, the line where life and death met and the night sky was hemmed away from swallowing the world. Here was the barrier of night, guarded by the stars and the general on the wall, warriors against the abyss and gatekeepers of the door that let the sun and moon sail through the void above. A simple peasant girl from a village of the north would never think to visit the doors of night except as a ghost to pass onto the lands of the dead, but the maiden-brave had abandoned such fears when her tears were frozen to her cheeks.

The wall stretched across the horizon tall and slick as obsidian and jet. Starlight glittered upon the smoothness of its sides, broken only by small doors that none but the ghosts of the dead could pass. But in the center, wrought with gold, silver, and precious gems into shapes strange and shifting, was the doors by which passed the sun and moon through the sky, and there the maiden knew to fly. There she would find the general of the wall, and she prayed there she would find safety and help.

The spell of true names faltered and fell as she reached under the shadow of the wall, and she landed on the lifeless ground stretched out before it. Carefully she walked the flat and featureless earth to reach the roots of the wall, pale dust floating up around her feet. Strangely she could no longer feel the cold, nor any wind, and all around her was bleached of color. But the maiden told herself not to be afraid.

A line of crows perched atop the crenels of the wall near the gates. As the maid drew near she saw each bird was a tall and mighty man, a puissant soldier with skin as black as night and armor like obsidian, a cloak of feathers swathed around them, and in each hand a lance of burning starlight held with pride and ease. Their faces were hard and stern, their eyes vigilant in their watch.

At their head stood the tallest figure, a man in dark armor that glittered with the reflection of each star. The mask of his helmet covered his face above his nose, and his eyes were dark shadows and yet bright. The mouth below was grimly set, and the maiden knew she looked upon the general on the wall.

"Please," whispered the maid. "Save me, for the sorcerer of evil magic who steals the power of true names and hunts with a pack of unearthly wolves, who has claimed the dead woods of the north as his domain and me as his winter bride, will hunt for me and try to conquer all to be under his control."

"We know of this sorcerer and his tower of ice," said the general in his jet-black mask, and the line of crow soldiers cawed and cried in derision and anger. "And I know you are no winter bride," said the general, "for my mother was one, and the powers of snow and ice were mine to command." At this the maiden startled, and noticed the icy pallor of his skin. But the grim line of his mouth softened like the snowmelt in the first days of spring. "A child of the north I was, a soldier that remembered fondly its silent woods, before I accepted the position to lead the wall of night. Now it is my duty to guard the world’s life from the dark creatures of the void and sky, and protect the passage of the sun and moon as they journey between these realms and fight the evil forces that seek to devour us all.

"But for your courage, and the memory of my mother and the lands I remember well, I welcome you to my wall. Rest and heal, human maid. A kind and powerful lady has come to visit here as well, a daughter of both sea and stars, so you shall have company. But you cannot stay long, nor disrupt our duties. And these are the long and dark months of winter, and there is no sun, our king, to face this sorcerer grown powerful indeed. Without the sun I cannot leave the wall in force with my men, allow the gates that bar the night to be unguarded and the world and all its life unprotected.”

The dark and yet glittering pits of the general’s eyes were as pitiless as the shine of a well-honed sword, but his voice was soft and sad. “Come, human maid, go to the lady that is our guest. Let her remove those tattered skins of wolves and trolls, heal your wounds and soothe your tears. You have traveled far and bravely come, and for that we honor you.”

The maiden could not answer no, and allowed the soldiers in their heavy drapes of crow feathers to lead her away, the dust from the end of the earth and passage of the dead clinging to the bottom of her feet.

The stairs weaving up through the innards of the wall that held back the night were not like those of the sorcerer’s tower. These were smooth and even, of dark polished stone, and a vein of silver that shone like a star ran along its sides. The black feathers of the soldier’s cloak that escorted the maid fluttered and murmured. The sound and movement calmed her as she climbed, fingers running along the smooth vein of silver on the wall. The crow soldier led the maiden to the visitor’s chambers, and his dark eyes watched her as she reached for the door. The brown-eyed maid was not afraid of the soldier, even with his expressionless face and glass dark eyes, for there was a curtsey in his stillness, and she thanked him. The crow soldier left. Alone, the maiden opened the door.

Thus by chance the maiden-brave was brought before the great lady, a daughter of both sea and stars, and the brown-eyed maid of a common northern village was struck by a feeling of shyness and unworthiness. A maid forced to don the false mantle of a winter bride with no true magic would be low indeed to a high and fine lady, one who could call all the great powers of the stars and ocean-born storms. But a voice, gentle and firm, beckoned her to lift her chin, telling the maid that she was glad and honored to have her as a fellow guest.

The other occupant of the room was kin to the magicians born in the south, splendid and powerful. One of the stars, who all knew could take human form and lived among them as rulers and protectors, weavers of magic to guard the living. Her cloak was of the deepest blue, studded with bright gems and lace of gold and silver, and the gown beneath was pale as sea spray. When the maid approached she could see the iridescent scales that shimmered beneath the lady’s skin and knew the noble woman was more than just a star come to the wall of night. The call of the ocean, the mysteries and vastness of its deeps, lurked as well, and the maiden knew she was in the presence of one as powerful as her false former husband.

But the maiden felt brave.

"Come," said the lady of stars and sea. The voice was of a young women who had lived once with fear as well. "I have heard praise of your journey here, and will be honored for your companionship as I wait for the new sun, my father, to return from his quest and grace the dark winter sky with light once more."

The maiden-brave looked into the face of the lady of stars and sea, and saw kindness. Long had the maid been starved of it, since her home had been razed to the earth by the wielder of magic outlawed by men and then forced to be his cruelly-treated bride. For so long only the hound with sea green eyes had compassion for her pain, and tears came anew to her eyes.

At this the lady with the cloak of stars and skin that shimmered like the scales of fish knelt and gathered the maid in her arms, holding her close and whispering soothing words. Once the sorrow and tears were spent the lady entreated that the maid tell the story of how she came to the wall that guarded the night.

In a voice that often broke the maiden-brave recounted her tale, constant in her praise of the hunter once a hound who risked so much to save her. Shaking with pain and fear when speaking of the sorcerer, the maid also spoke of other hounds, the evil wolves who had once been men, and of how the bard with a cloak of autumn red had come. She spoke of the magic of true names that changed forms, of how they had flown as birds to escape, but the spell had not been strong enough for both. She spoke of having to leave the man in the empty forest of bears, and her vow to return and find him. “Can you tell me a way I might be reunited with him, go back and save him from the sorcerer who must now still be hunting for him and I?” said the brown-eyed maid in a quiet voice, staring down as hands that remembered clear the broken hands of the man who a hound once been, hands that held her, eyes that saw her, and a voice that called her name when no one else did.

"The queen of the moon who ferries the dead to their lands of rest may help you more," said the lady sadly.

"My hunter-bold lives," said the maiden-brave.

At this salty tears fell from the eyes of the woman. “I will help you,” said the lady with skin that shimmered like the scales of fish. “I will teach you how to fly back to your hunter-bold, and pray you are right, that you shall find the one who had helped you so, that you have helped and loved so.”

At this the eyes of the maid were the ones to feel the sting of tears, and she thanked the lady of stars and sea.

The lady spoke with a smile born of excitement, for that long wait for her father, the new sun, to return had drained blue eyes that should have danced like waves of the sea to a flat and lifeless gray. Bright now of face and eye and voice the lady described what was needed to craft two cloaks that would gift their wearers with the flight of strong-winged birds. And, she promised, needed not the curse of true names.

"I know of how you may craft such skins, giving you the means to travel to the side of your hunter-bold. If," the lady of stars and sea warned, "not already through the gates in the wall of night and passed to the lands of the dead has he gone. If he is living still, my gift shall teach you how to reach him."

"Please," the maiden begged.

"First you must have a needle," said the lady of storms and sea, "to sew the cloaks you need. This I have, and will give free." The lady walked to her chest near her bed, lifted the lid of a great chest carved with sinuous sea serpents and fronds of seaweed, and pulled out a small box of silver and mother-of-pearl. "Your story has touched me," the lady explained, "and your company relieves me from lonely waiting in this long dark for my father to return. In truth this is a kindness you do to me, to allow me to help you. There are dangers that lurk in the darkness of the void, and my father of all the valiant lords of the stars was chosen to be the new sun. I wait for him here, at the wall that guards against the night, because I will not have peace otherwise. But here, this is the tool you will need."

The lady of stars and sea held up a needle carved from a wood pale as bone. The maiden held out her hands, and into them was placed the pale object. There was a faint warmness from the needle, and the smell of sunlight through leaves. “It came from a fallen branch of the white wood trees that grow at the borders of time. They can stitch souls together, and fates, and also the magic of stars and seasons. It is a precious tool, for all it is so small.” The maiden marveled at the needle, for it was no longer that the tallest finger of her hand, and the point was blunt and drew no blood when she pressed against it.

A needle they had, but thread they did not. For this the lady of the stars and sea bade the maiden follow as they climbed through the halls and stairways of the wall. One of the chambers had no ceiling, but opened directly to the night sky. Here they stopped. The room held a single stone bench and several bowls of solid jade of all the colors from milky white to summer yellow to the growing greens of the south. The lady with skin that shimmered like scales of a fish sat on the bench and looked up at the night. Tucking the needle into the belt pouch of her new gown, the maiden joined the lady on the bench. She too stared up at the sky through the opening in the wall and asked why they were here.

"My mother was of the sea," said the lady, running a hand down the side of a cheek and making her skin glimmer like mother-of-pearl. "She honored an agreement set by the lords of the south to live on the shore and marry one of them. And when she wed my father she traded the winds and water of the ocean for a skin caked in salt. Her voice of wild storms softened to a quiet song that rarely sang above my cradle. My mother married my father for duty, though over time she grew a fondness for him, and me as well. She taught me how to call the great winds, to churn a storm that could smash across the earth and level mountains if I needed to. My father was a magician of the stars, as many with magic are. Through him I have the power to draw on them, and it is from starlight we shall cord, using our voices as the spindle to spin the thread."

The peasant maid from a simple village of the north was confused.

"Listen to me," said the lady, holding up her arms as if there was a distaff in one and a spindle in the other. "I will work the spell, but for the magic to heed you, this you must do as well. We shall call to the stars, and draw solid starlight, the purest of silver and gold, from them. Did you think the metal on the doors of the wall that holds back the night came from the earth, or the lances of the soldiers that guard it? No, they are from the stars, and so also the thread you shall use to weave the cloaks.

"You must give them a song, from emotion be it grief or joy. As long as it is true you shall pull the star thread from the sky, enough starlight to weave the magic you need."

"Any song?" the maiden asked.

"I shall show you," said the lady of stars and sea with a gentle smile. She tilted back her head and the scales under her skin shimmered iridescently.

The lady sang a song that sounded like the softest of waves, of ripples in a clear pool, a lullaby of minnows and floating jellyfish. Shafts of pale light reflected down from the smooth walls of the chamber, growing thicker and brighter. Soon a lance of starlight like a solid bar stretched from the night sky to their feet, and the lady told the maid to grab one of the jade bowls. The lady of the stars and sea reached out and plucked the light, which turned to soft metal in her hand and dropped it in the bowl.

"Now you must sing," she told the maiden with plain brown eyes.

The maiden looked down at the contents of the bowl, where the metal-like substance was cooling into what looked like fine gold and silver wire as thin as horsehair. She knew not how much thread would be needed for two cloaks of magic, nor did she trust her own singing to be lovely and pure. What true magic could she call, the maiden doubted. But then she looked to see the calm blue eyes of the lady upon her, eyes that trusted and believed.

So the maiden sang.

First, the maiden sang songs that she remembered from living as a child among her village. Simple and crude songs, songs that celebrated food and drink and the tasks of harvest and planting, of hunting in the forests and playing in the streams. The songs of weddings and celebrations and funerals. The maiden remembered food which she had not eaten in many months, and the sounds of familiar and friendly voices. The walk from her house to the market, the feeling of dough under her fingers, the sound of a plow. The soft feeling of real wool as her spindle swung around her feet. She remembered a life of a common village that she knew was gone, no more able to return than she become the girl that used to live there. And silver and gold pooled in her hands.

The lady of stars and sea gathered the starlight from the maid and poured it into a jade jar. “More songs,” she told the maiden with plain brown eyes. “I will sing as well, sing of my father who duty has chosen to become the next sun, of my pride and my fear. I will sing of my mother who waits at our castle on the shore for news of him. I will sing of the gratefulness and pride I feel, to have met a maiden as brave as you. But it is your songs that must draw the thread, and your hands that bind the cloaks.”

At this the maid nodded and looked up to the dark sky. She had never seen the stars when she had been trapped in the sorcerer’s tower.

The maiden sang of her fear, the torment of the tower of ice and how the sorcerer had tried to use her, his cruelty and lust, and how she never felt warm. She sang of the cries that no one heard. She sang of tears that froze on her cheeks, feet that bled, the crown of bone and iron that cut her brow. And silver pooled in her hands.

The maiden sang of the joy and the terror of the first flight from the tower, the snowstorm that blinded them and their pursuers, how it felt to escape. And gold pooled in her hands.

The maiden sang of the hound with the hunter’s eyes, of recognizing him in the snow and speaking his name. Of how he would rest his head on her lap and stare at her mournfully. That he slept outside her door and tried to give her comfort during those cruel times. The slow wag of his tail when no one else was watching. That he knew her name and tried to save her. And silver pooled in her hands.

She sang of her determination, that she would not abandon him. That she had survived the horror of the sorcerer and escaped his power. That she had broken the spell upon the hunter that was a hound. She sang of her hope. And gold pooled in her hands.

"Now you have the thread you need," said the lady of stars and sea. "But this is only to sew together the pieces of the cloaks. To craft a pair of cloaks that shall grant you flight swift and sure and strong, you need the crow-black feathers from the soldiers that man the wall that guards the night. You must go and ask each one for a feather, and then stitch them together with the thread you gathered, using the needle from the tree of the borders between time and seasons." The lady of stars and sea smiled, an expression both gentle and sad that stretched at the scales under her skin. "When the cloaks are ready you must don one, and carry the other for the one you wish to save. I will call up a wind for you, a great storm to carry you back to the lands of harsh winter where the sorcerer’s power held sway. I pray you find him, your hunter-bold.”

"And I pray your father will return soon," answered the maiden, "crowned in the new glory as the sun. And that you also return to your mother, who weeps salt for her family and must miss you both dearly."

At this the lady of stars and sea waved away tears, for the maiden had guessed the first song the lady had sung, the lullaby her mother sang over her cradle of one who missed an ocean home but had found love unexpected in a husband and daughter.

"Go now, and ask first the general on the wall. He is a noble man, and will accept your request."

To the general on the wall the brown-eyed maid explained her task, and though he did not commend the thought of her leaving the safety of his wall, he removed one feather from the cape around the shoulders of his iron-black armor. Then he removed a second from the other side, telling her that as she was sewing two capes, two feathers she would need.

Holding both feathers tight in her fist, the maiden bowed and thanked the general for all he had done.

Along the wall that stretched across the horizon did the maiden walk. And at each step the maiden begged every crow soldier for just one feather from their kit. After listening to her pleading and tears, each crow would pluck a single feather with his beak and hand it reverently over to the brown-eyed maid. One feather from every soldier on the wall that stretched across the horizon, thus she gathered enough for two long cloaks. The maid stitched the cloaks as the lady of stars and storms instructed, one with threads of silver, one with threads of gold, using the pale needle of warm white wood. Each time the maiden received a feather from a guard along the wall, she added it. Thus two cloaks of black crow feathers she finished, one stitched with threads of silver, the one with threads of gold. And following the final instructions of the lady of stars and sea, the maiden folded one cloak close to her body and draped the other around her shoulders.

The general on the wall told her to wait, that he would be sending a force to hunt down the wielder of magic outlawed by men. That there was no need for the maid to fly ahead. But the maiden-brave did not trust the soldiers upon the wall of night to stop the sorcerer, and her concern was only for the man who had once a hound and poacher been. That he had been left in the snow, no shelter, no fire, no clothing but a single pelt, thus did her thoughts linger. She feared that if she waited long, truly gone to her would he who was once hound and hunter been. To find him she vowed to fly, and to aid her the lady of stars and sea promised to call up a wind swift and strong.

The soldiers that guarded the wall that held back the night watched her leave, and each bowed a head as she walked by, a bobbing line of star-bright beaks and jet black armor that rippled like a pond into a stone tossed. Through the gate the maiden passed back into the side of the living. She stood upon the colorless dust, looking towards the woods of bleakest winter. Nervously a hand clenched the cloak of silver thread and crow-dark feathers.

The general walked out to stand close to her side, and with his sword pointed to a distant point on the horizon. “There is where the sorcerer holds reign.” He waved with the sheathed blade, “And a little beyond this spot is where bears would roam, back when I was a soldier who served the winter lands of my mother’s kin. There you may find your man, if he can be found. Fly swift, human maid, and let not the sorcerer see you. When my king returns, potent and terrible shall the forces be that we bring to destroy that foul user of such magic outlawed by men, and no more shall anyone fear his power.” Once more all those that guarded the night cawed and cried as one voice, a call of scorn and challenge for any that would oppose them.

"Thank you," the maiden whispered, but she did not look back.

Leaping into the still air, the maiden-brave felt the feathers flutter in a swift-born wind, the magic of the star thread seeping across her skin cool yet pleasant. The wings felt nothing like the first two times when the maid had by magic been forced into the form of a bird, mind disoriented by the feel of wings instead of hands. The cloak twisted none of her thoughts nor made weary any of her limbs. Swifter was her flight and clearer her sight. The maiden flew on the winds of the storm, ahead of the blizzard the lady had called, like a dark herald of its coming.

Soon she was above the leafless trees and hard-packed snow not far from where she remembered falling. The brown-eyed maid slowed her flight and began to weave between the trees, ducking and diving between the long bare branches. As she flew she called out the true name of the hunter-bold. Only silence and the storm answered her. Harder she cried, wailing in fear. “Please let him not be dead.” The maiden with plain brown eyes told herself she did not go through such trails and quests to not return to him, he that had saved her and she him. That their story would thus not end. But as she searched only the wind was her reply, and she feared. Her only comfort was the absence of the howls of wolves that told her the sorcerer and his pack were not nearby.

Exhausted, the maid landed before a tree of red leaves and white bark, her pale skinny knees upon the glassy ice of the pools. She wept, cried out the hunter’s true name. Crawling, she rested a hand against the tree. There was the gentlest of warmth from the white wood tree that yet did not melt any of the snow around it. The maid yearned for the return of hope she had sung to the stars, for an emptiness was now filling her heart. Once more she whispered the true name only she knew, the one she saved them with. The leaves rustled in response; the wind whimpered an echo of the name. Tears unshed in her eyes, the maid glanced up and saw a skeletal figure draped like a broken doll in the branches. With a cry she flew up on her crow-wing cloak to pull the body gently from the tree. It was her love returned to her, and she cradled his face in her hands. The man who long ago a poacher been was thin and covered in healed scars and old dried blood. A single bear claw wrapped in wire and threaded through a leather cord hung from his neck. His eyes did not open, and his body did not move.

Carefully the maid felt the faintest of pulses, and warm liquid tears fell from her eyes to roll down his. The man opened his eyes to see her face. He smiled with a mouth still half-full of dog teeth. He whispered her true name. Joyfully the maiden-brave cried back and tucked the second coat of crow feathers and gold thread around his cold body. “I’ve come to save you,” she told him. “We can fly away together.”

"My maiden-brave," answered the hunter-bold, and then bespoke her true name with love.

None could say how long the moment was that the two spoke not at all, arms entwined around each other and shaking with relief to look upon the other whole and unharmed. Fingers badly broken by the long servitude as a dreadful hound softly carded through the maiden’s dark hair, stroking with wonder the black feathers of the cloak, wiping gently away all tears that threatened to fall. “They are good tears,” the maiden said, staring into his sea green eyes, running her own fingers across his lips and marveling at the smile upon them.

She picked up the bear claw that hung around his neck, wondering at where it came from and what it signified. She could feel the damaged skin around his neck from its cord, and in silent concern and reproach she entreated the story behind it. “Bears,” said the man who had once been the best poacher in these woods, “can tell the scent of true wolves from those of the foul sorcerer, and have little love for him. They gave me their protection, though their hostage would be closer in truth, and it was shelter. And I did not the have the strength to refuse. I was fortunate, for it is still the long winter, and the bears do little but sleep until the return of spring. Had the sun returned before I left them, my fate would not have been so kind. The bears do not love me, not any man, and are hungry when the thaws come.”

The maiden shivered. Once more she embraced the man, her small arms squeezing at his emaciated form, hot tears of relief to feel his arms returning the gesture, his own grip slowly growing stronger and surer. “But how?” she asked, thinking of his body cold and draped among the branches of the tree like a broken doll or a scarf blown up and tangled in the high limbs.

"I heard my name," said the hunter as if no other words were needed to explain. "I know my name," and no words for the long time in which as a loyal hound of the sorcerer he had been and this had not been true.

"If you are hale enough to bear the journey," said the maid, "this cloak made of a feather from every soldier of the wall that guards the night, woven with star thread and a needle given to me by the lady of stars and sea, will carry you. The power in it is greater than the spell of names that bore us from the tower. And it would not be wise for us to linger here, for the sorcerer lives yet, and has a pack that can track the magic."

"Indeed," answered the man, looking down at the cloak of black and gold. "I have no desire to remain in these woods, or ever again see that cruel one. My only wish," said the hunter-bold in a soft and longing voice, "is to be ever more at your side. That we shall never need to part. Wherever you wish to go, I shall go with you."

"And I, you," answered the maiden-brave.

One last time the hunter-bold and maiden-brave took to wing.

They stood on the ice of the froze pool and faced west, black feathered cloaks flowing down their arms and down their backs, hands and fingers entwined. The man who once a poacher been told the maid that there was a far shore to the west and a sea dark and green. There were many islands in that sea. His memory before the spell that stole his true name and turned him into a hound of the sorcerer was frayed and thin, but the hunter remembered the rocky shore, and the distant peaks of islands in the distance. “There we shall fly,” said the hunter-bold, “for these cloaks will give us the wings to make the journey. Safe we will be. No dark memories.”

At this the maiden smiled.

The winter wind, strong but light on snow, still blew through the bare branches of the forest. Until the sun her father and king returned, the lady of stars and sea would use the gift of her mother to generate storm winds to carry her friend to safety. The great swirling squalls of the sea were mighty and burdened with water and heavy with stamina, able to last for weeks and travel vast distances. Those winds could make even the earth bow to their power. From these great storms did the bride of the lord that was chosen to be the new sun come from, and those winds did she give her daughter. Those ocean-born winds did the lady of stars and sea gift to her friend, the maiden-brave with plain brown eyes.

"The thought of the sea pleases me," she told the hunter, looking into the green of his eyes. "One last time, but together, we shall fly."

"Of course," said the hunter-bold, lifting his arms and marveling at the golden thread that washed over them, the feathers that splayed out into long and powerful wings like that of a tern or albatross. "We shall see the sun rise over the ocean."

Up the hunter-bold and maiden-brave flew, a well-matched pair of black-winged shapes gliding westward on winds that smelled of salt and snow. The blood-red leaves of the pale tree rustled and shook, as if to bid them farewell.

At first the journey was swift and quiet, the only movement the pair of black shadows that rippled across the white snow and tops of trees as a reflection of the pair that flew above. But soon the vague shapes of gaunt dogs, ghost-like and outlined only by the drifting snow, floated in and out of their sight, always indistinct and distant, but slowly increasing until it seemed a large pack encircled them like a net.

The feeling of frost on her skin, freezing again her cheeks and slowing the blood in her veins, washed over the maiden-brave, and she called out to the man. Even before she asked, the maid knew what had come.

A voice latched onto the wind, weighing it down with chains of rot and darkness, pulling backwards, and turning the air currents into biting knives. The whistling sound natural to the wind twisted into the howls of starvation-mad wolves. The sorcerer had found the maiden-brave and hunter-bold, and sang to the storm winds to drive the two back to him. “No,” screamed the maid, feeling the wind shove against her. “These are not your winds!” she cried as much in outrage and anger as in fear. “The lady of sea and stars called the winds for me and my hunter-bold! They are not yours to command; they are not yours to control!”

"We are not yours, not anymore," said the man who once a hound had been, a hound no longer. "You have no claim on us, no power of our true names. They are ours!"

The voice of the sorcerer on the storm winds muted, as if the throat that voiced it had been cut. The foul taint of magic and the shapes of wolves dissolved, as if it had been a leech yanked way and squeezed to death by a powerful grip.

In defiance and joy the hunter-bold laughed. The black and gold feather wings of his cloak beat the air with deep and powerful strokes, and high and swift he flew, reveling in the freedom. Swooping around him, laughing and sometimes exchanging the position of lead and trail, the maiden-brave understood and equaled his joy. The sorcerer had scarred them but not could not own them. Always they would fly free of him.

As they flew the snow of the cold winds would catch on the star thread of the cloaks, brushing the silver and gold light across the black feathers as the snow sweep off. The shimmering light soaked into the jet black feathers, turning sections of the wings to white and grey. No longer as dark as ravens were the flying forms of the maiden and the hunter-bold, but patches of white as well, like the great seabirds are now.

The man and the maid did not stop when they came to the shore and saw dark waves crashing against the rocks and pebble-strewn line of the shore. Onward they looked, where the stars glimmered on the crests of the waves. On the horizon, illuminated by the arc of the moon, was a lightless patch that could only be an island rising from the sea like a great whale surfacing for air. There beckoned. South they flew and west, the song of the ocean to join the aria of the wind, and the maiden-brave thought the look of the sea as strange as that of the wall that guarded the night, vast and unfathomable. But she did not fear it.

The journey was long, and weariness began to affect the maiden-brave, for she had traveled far first from the northernmost horizon of the wall of the night, searching the dark northern woods of winter for the hunter-bold, and now flying to the western shore and across the sea. Ahead the man who a hunter had been flew, breaking the trail in the storm for her, using the currents of his passage to help hold her aloft. Often he would glance back to her and call encouragement. Merrily she would reply that the promise of his company and a home free of dark memories satisfied all need for strength. Onward she urged him fly.

The song of the ocean changed to that of waves upon a shore, and the hunter knew they had reached the island. Exhausted the pair spiraled down to the pale strip of beach, uncertain of what would be found inland with its dense trees and many stony outcroppings. And the man did not wish to prolong their flight, knowing how the maiden had traveled so far and so constantly to reunite with him. Nor did he have much strength, thin and unwell as he had been. Yet ignored his own weakness did the man who once a poacher been, so long ago he could scare remember those days when he hunted in forests and mocked kings’ laws, back when the maiden was just another face in the village where he sold his catches. The maid had done much for his sake, and he felt he had asked too much from her. Then the man saw her face as they circled down to the beach, and he knew that she perceived the weariness in him that he had tried to conceal and also the reasons that urged him to hide in. The maiden-brave did not need to speak the words to say to the hunter-bold that she had chosen to fly back to him, and to journey across the sea. That she did not blame him for the spell that turned her appearance into that of a winter bride, or the torment of the sorcerer’s tower, or even sending her alone to the wall that guarded the night. The maiden-brave would not allow the hunter-brave to blame himself for these either. “We are here,” she said, landing on the sand and breathing in the unfamiliar smell of seaweed and salt and shore. “It was my choice to come for you, to be with you.”

At that the man landed and clasped both her hands, holding them gently under the cloak of white and black feathers, saying with the gesture that he felt the same.

In the soft sand of the beach they knelt, only the faint starlight illuminating the shapes around them in varying degrees of black. By sound and touch they found each other, and unclasped the cloaks from their shoulders, laying one underneath them and using the other as a blanket. Together they slept, and their dreams were untroubled. Their warm breaths gently stroked the other’s cheeks.

In the morning, a faint grey light washed over them, for no longer so far north were the maiden-brave and hunter-bold. Here the heart of winter held more than darkness. But it was not morning light that woke the lovers but the rancorous barking of many animals. At first the hunter jolted up in fear, for hearing the loud rough barks he thought he was back among the sorcerer’s dogs, huddled in the midst of that terrible pack. But as the shock and hold of sleep evaporated from his eyes the man saw that he had been wrong. All along the beach where he and the maid had landed were the fat brown and white speckled shapes of seals. They had landed in the center of a colony of seals, and in the darkness of the night had mistaken the sleeping forms for those of rocks. This large colony slept on the sandy shore, and with the morning come the seals were waking. They barked and called to each other, shuffling around on short flippers and waddling bodies. Many a pair of round and warm dark eyes stared at the two new shapes that had suddenly appeared in their midst. The man laughed. “I suppose we are a surprise to you, as you are to us,” he addressed to the seals, and shook the maiden’s shoulder gently, bidding her wake to see the sleek shapes that shuffled and bobbed around them.

"Indeed," called a merry and gruff voice.

The maiden-brave and hunter-bold stood in shock, unconcerned about their state of undress, to hear such an unexpected voice. But it was no sign of coming harm, for the voice was that of the chieftess of seals, and her husband their chief. Two of the largest seals shuffled towards the hunter and maid, and the other seals waddled out of the path that soon cleared between the two pairs. The chieftain seals were about equal in size, one a mottled brown, the other a paler tan with long bristles on his face. As the seals approached, their bodies transformed until no longer two seals but two figures that looked nearly human stood before the maiden-brave and hunter-bold. The large colony of seals that slept on this sandy shore were seals that could take human form. The large man had a larger belly and uncombed beard, crowned in a thatch of green kelp, and wore garments that looked like smooth-fitting sealskin tunic and pants yet there was no seam on any of these garments. His wife, equally tall and broad with muscle as well as fat, wore the same clothing that was not clothing, and a necklace of gray barnacles clattered around her neck and bosom. Her eyes were the only that were not brown, but instead a dancing green that matched the playful waves.

"Welcome to the beach of the seal-kin," said the man, he that was chief of the seals that could take human form.

"Tell us who you are," said she that was chieftess of the seals that could take human form.

Encircled by a crowd of curious and friendly seals, some that watched and listened in the shape of humans and some that did not, the maiden-brave and her hunter-bold recounted their tale once more, pausing at one point for breakfast, which one of the seals had fetched. As raw fish was a little much for their stomachs, first the hunter lit a fire, which the chiefs of the seals sent another of their subjects to fetch driftwood and dried kelp to help build. Most of that gray morning was needed for the maiden and the hunter to recount all that had befallen them. Often they were interrupted in their tale as the chief of the seals would pause to congratulate their courage, or the chieftess to press them both to her bosom, unmindful of the scraping barnacles, and declare that both the maiden and man had suffered far too much. And as they were now under her protection, no wolf or sorcerer or dark hunting whale, which the hunter-bold did not know of but had gathered from the seals was something to be feared, would ever harm them again. Both humans muffled their gratitude into the press of her furry grip. The young seals, like many wide-eyed children, gathered around them, sticking curious fingers and flippers into the feathered cloaks, stroking the dry skin of the humans. Such honest curiosity brought laughter to the maiden-brave and hunter-bold.

"You will be safe here, and always welcome," said the chief and chieftess of the seals that could take human form.

On this island would the hunter-bold and maiden-brave make their home, and enduring would their friendship with the seals that could take human form be. But that night they bedded down at the shore of the islands of the seals, this time more aware that observers watched them. And the hunter resolved that a house would be the first thing they would build, if nothing else for the seals were loud, and their barking calls soon lost any claim to pleasantness.

The next morning the maiden-brave and her hunter-bold awoke to an even brighter morning. Turning east, looking across the waves to where the distant shore could be almost seen, they saw golden light blazing forth. They could smell the heady scent of flowers on the wind from across the sea. Then the maid and the man who once a poacher been knew that the sun and king had returned to the lands of the south with all the armies of spring and summer behind him. Eyes did not need to see to understand what had come to pass. That the lord sun blazed with golden light, banishing the dark magics of the evil sorcerer. The grass blades of the princes of flowers pierced the hides of trolls, and the knights of summer with their keen blades wounded him. The fleet foam horses and hounds belonging to the river maidens ran far from their banks to hunt down and harry the evil wolves. The bows of the daughters of the moon, led by their red-haired queen with falcon wings, arched through the sky to blast through the walls of the sorcerer’s tower. That all had joined with the general of the night who commanded soldiers with crow-black feathers and beaks of stabbing starlight. And that the evil sorcerer with the power of true names was no more.

The tears that fell from their cheeks were warm and free, the water of relief.

A home the hunter-bold and maiden-brave built for themselves on the edge of the forest where it greeted the sandy beach of the seals. It was not a large home, but very snug and warm, with lovingly crafted furniture and many fine tapestries and thick bedding sewn with the white wood needle. Their bedroom was dominated by two things. First was a bed built more like a nest, piled high with warm blankets and atop them all a coverlet of white and black feathers and silver and gold thread. The second was a window that could be shuttered close during the worst of winter storms, but on pleasant days and soothing nights was thrown open. The window was large and looked out upon the ocean, allowing the breeze and the smell of the sea to enter freely. Tangled together in their nest-like bed the moonlight and starlight pooled around the maiden and the hunter, banishing fears and nightmares. Softly they would whisper to each other their true names, each breath passing between them like a secret gift.

In time the lovers had a son, a boy that knew not the sorrows they had faced. Still he traced the scars of their hands and feet and face. He knew from the cold tremors and the times when his parents would have a dark and far-distant gaze that there was a tale of terribleness behind them, one that on rare mornings would grip them with cold ghost fingers. Then their son would hold his parents tight and tell them of his love. Other days he knew they needed time together, and thus he would spend the day exploring the tangled tree roots that grew around the iron-rich rocks or playing with the young seals along the beach. In the evening he would return, face red with excursion and excitement, arms full of rocks and flowers and curious shells. His father would exclaim over every find and teach him from where each part came, or his mother would pet and comb his hair and help him craft a song to record it. Their story they would tell him, brushing away the worst of the terror in its telling until he was old enough to hear, but not hiding the truth, for it could not. In any case, the chief and chieftess of the seals that could take human form knew the tale, and neither were quiet sorts that would hold a story secret unless as part of some great jest.

It was not perfect peace for the man who a hound and hunter been and the maid who once wore a crown of bone and ice. But it was good enough.

Their son learned to swim like one of the seals that could take human form, to dive among the deep waves bold and fearless. Agile and swift he grew, a master of the bow, of woods and ocean, and a mighty singer. His eyes were green, and his smile was wide and ready, but there was a gentleness and firmness of purpose that his father claimed was his best trait and solely to credit of his mother. To which the woman who wore a shawl of golden flowers could only laugh, and her son wondered how any could have mistaken her for a winter bride.

Their son married the daughter of the chief and chieftess of the seals that could take human form, and their children had no fear of the sea nor the storms that swept across it. The story of the hunter-bold and maiden-brave was told to them, and their children, and proudly did the lords of the island remember their founders, the laughing hunter-bold and the maiden-brave with brown eyes who saved each other and flew.

Especially at weddings would the sailors of the island like to tell this story, and that is where I first heard it told. So I can assure you that the two of them lived happily ever after, or as close as could be expected.


End file.
